Bank official bemoans possible downgrade

PARIS, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- The governor of France's central bank attacked credit agencies for considering a downgrade of the country's triple-A rating.

Bank of France chief Christian Noyer said a French downgrade wouldn't be justified, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

Instead of looking at France, Noyer said credit rating agencies should focus on Britain, which "has bigger deficits, more debt, higher inflation, less growth than us and where credit is shrinking," he said.

"The agencies have, frankly, become incomprehensible and irrational. They launch threats, even though [eurozone] states have taken strong and positive decisions," Noyer said. "A downgrade does not seem to me justified based on economic fundamentals."

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said during a visit to Sao Paulo, Brazil, that France likely would experience "more jolts" as it battled to overcome the eurozone crisis.

"The markets and the rating agencies have their own logic," Fillon said. "But what is important is not their judgment on one day, but the strategic political trajectory and budgetary rigor that Europe, and France, have decided to adopt."

France is among 15 eurozone members put on negative watch by Standard & Poor's earlier this month, but was only one of six single-currency countries with a triple-A rating threatened with a two-notch downgrade.

Britain's triple-A rating hasn't been threatened yet.

Standard & Poor's said it would decide whether to action after it assessed the outcome of last week's European Union summit on the sovereign debt crisis. Moody's has said the summit did not improve the outlook for the eurozone.

"I don't know what the agencies are doing," Noyer said. "As I see it, what they have succeeded in doing by their critical commentaries is undermining a positive sentiment which existed on the markets the day after the summit in Brussels."